Last summer, I spent ten days traveling around the east coast with a good friend. We camped on the beach in Maryland, saw a couple of MLB ballparks, and wrapped the trip up with a meditation workshop in D.C. 

And we saw a man with a goat. :-)

There was also some excellent craft beer, though by the end of the trip, both Heather and I concluded that Maine has some of THE best craft beer out there. 

I digress.

At the workshop, I took a lot of notes, even when I was supposed to be meditating, (because meditating is hard), but my favorite line from the day was:

Success is grit - it is the willingness to stay with it.

Grit is defined as “courage and resolve; strength of character.” Also tenacity, determination and perseverance, among others. 

If any of you have tried meditating, you understand the challenge of just sitting still for five minutes. Most of us would like to do it, but shutting the mind off for even thirty seconds is like figuring out what all the buttons on a Sony Playstation controller do after learning video games on Atari.

In meditative practice, they call the constant stream of thoughts the monkey mind. And people who have practiced meditation regularly for years still have monkey mind when they sit down to meditate. But as the instructor on Saturday reminded us, success with meditation comes from staying with the practice. 

The same is certainly true with fitness. 

We all hit a plateau at one time or another in our fitness practice. The first five pounds come off quickly, we add weight to the bar as we get stronger, we feel like we’re knocking it out of the park and then…..

We plateau. Our body adapts. The results don’t come as quickly. 

We get discouraged. And that’s where the grit comes in. Because showing up feels harder. Motivation slips further away. And it becomes easier to skip the workout because the scale hasn’t moved in six weeks anyway.

Only you can define what success looks like in your fitness goals. Going down a pants’ size, doing a body weight chin up, deadlifting your own bodyweight - whatever it is you’re setting out to achieve - it’s the willingness to stay with it - to find the grit - that will help you get where you want to go. 

This is my 75th blog post of 2016.

And the 107th post on my very young site. 

Looking back through the posts, a major goal for the new year is to write better headlines though. :)

I have my reservations about doing a “best of” for my blog. My site is young, and despite my age, I’m young in the industry. I’ve learned a lot, but the more I learn, the more I realize I still have to learn. 

But I started this site in part because there is so much gimmicky fitness bulls*** out there that it becomes impossible to know where to start with your fitness journey. I wanted to give friends, family members, and clients a place to find information to get them started. And thousands of people have visited the site which is very humbling.

Many of these posts are reflections of me and what I’ve learned in the 40 plus years I’ve had to fiddle around on this earth. Some of them tie into fitness, and some of them, like the most popular post from the site, are just about life.

1. It took 15 years and a failed run to understand how depression was affecting my life

With close to 10,000 views on Facebook and 22 shares, this was by far the most popular post that I wrote in 2016. But this is more about the pervasive struggle with mental health issues and the fact that according to the Center for Disease Control, as many as 1 in 10 adults report symptoms of depression than it is about anything I'm saying. This is just my story. 

2. Why I turned down a Division I scholarship

Once again, this has nothing to do with fitness, but everything to do with what it means to be a coach or a parent working with kids in youth sports. Burnout can come out of nowhere, and it did for me. 

3. You don't have to earn your holiday cookies

This was a recap from 2015, but so important that I thought it was worth re-writing and posting, and so did all of you. I'll be working more on this message in 2017, and hopefully you will too. Because it's important.

4. Are you over 50? Read this

This is a post addressing the importance of working on balance and core strength as you age. 

5. Exercises to combat the dangers of sitting

I wrote this post while still working at a desk job, and with folks who were constantly trying to find ways and times and strategies to move a little more. The two-part post involves videos of exercises you can do while still in your office, and some of them you can do while wearing a dress. Maybe. I mean if you want.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my site, like my Facebook page or follow me on Instagram. I look forward to continuing my education and growing my knowledge base to provide you with the most useful information I can in 2017. 

Cheers to the new year. 

Happy Belated Halloween!

Or as I think of it, a socially acceptable reason to dress like Captain America. 

A few months ago, I published a post on my struggle with depression.

It was by far my most popular post to date and I don’t pretend for one minute it’s related to my overall wit and charm.

Ok, maybe a little wit and charm. ;)

The post was popular because depression is so prevalent.

Last week at Spurling, I spent a little time offering a seminar on some of the strategies I’ve used to help get me going when I’ve felt stuck, in life and in fitness.

1. Sometimes feeling stuck is a sign that you need to make a change.

I know.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

When you feel stuck and mired in the struggle, it’s almost impossible to make a change. But sometimes you don't even recognize that something needs to change. 

Awareness is half the battle.

In the case of fitness, perhaps you no longer look forward to going to the gym. I was an avid runner while I struggled with depression, and it was my struggle to literally put one foot in front of the other that helped me realize I was in need of a major change.

2. Blink Twice.

A few years ago I had a therapist who had this maddening habit of doling out Buddhist stories and wisdom like a wise old sage atop a mountain. And there I was, having huffed and puffed my way to the top, only to find her sitting there, legs crossed and palms turned up saying something short and profound like this:

“Blink twice.”

To which I would claw my eyes out and unleash an unfiltered rant of expletives.

She was one of the most effective therapists I worked with, but I occasionally found myself like the Karate Kid waxing cars and catching flies with chopstix, wondering when we would get to the “real issues.”

The phrase "blink twice" comes from Buddhist Nun Pema Chodron, who suggests that we are only one blink away from change, from things being different. No, it’s not quite that easy, but it’s important to remember when we are stuck that even the tiniest of steps is progress.

Let me say that again; even the tiniest of steps is progress.

3. Start where you are.

Also from Pema Chodron, I spent last Friday’s post talking about this concept exclusively. You don’t need to wait until you are different or life is different to make a change. The tendency is to say I'll start "x" when "y" happens.

Don't wait for why.

Start right now, with where you are and who you are.

4. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

Ask yourself this question:

How’s that working for you?

And be brutally honest with the answer.

If you’ve been riding the recumbent bike for 30 minutes a day for six months and haven’t seen any change in your bodyfat, don’t expect month seven to produce different results.

Nothing will change if you don’t change. Whether it’s behavior or your reaction to the behavior, if you stay in the same habit pattern and habit loop, nothing will ever be different.

5. Change the narrative

This is the hardest one for me. Always the hardest. What story are you telling you about yourself? 

It's one thing to miss a workout. It's one thing to run slower than you used to run or spend a night with friends eating everything that's not inline with your nutrition plan.

It's another thing entirely to feed yourself a constant stream of criticism about your behavior.

It's one thing to be in a job you really hate, and another thing to focus every last bit of attention on all of the things you hate about the job. I've done this. I've lost days and months of my life focusing on all of the bad. On all of the suck.

There were good things during those difficult periods. But I was too focused on my negative narrative to see them.